Multi-party telephone conferences can be pre-scheduled or ad hoc. Pre-scheduled conferences set the time and duration of the conference in advance. Ad hoc conferences are created spontaneously without a pre-determined start time or duration. In general, pre-scheduled conferencing services, for example traditional conferencing services provided by telephony carriers or the web based voice over internet protocol (VoIP) conferencing services, provide a mechanism for a user to create and to pre-schedule a conference. These mechanisms include either using the telephone or a unique web page. After the conference is scheduled, each party wishing to participate in the conference is provided either a telephone number to call with conference identification code and password or a special web page for internet participants to join the conference. These pre-scheduled types of conferences utilize a centralized computer that can act as both a conference server and an audio mixer to host the conference. Pre-scheduled, multi-party conferences are the standard type of conferences provided by the telephone companies.
In ad hoc conferencing, a central conference server and audio mixer is also needed to host the conference. Ad hoc conferences are typically internet based, and computer applications have been created to facilitate this type of conferencing. Therefore, ad hoc conferences require interaction between these enterprise computer applications and voice communication.
Unfortunately, centralized conferencing systems suffer from long delays and bandwidth congestion, resulting in higher packet loss and decreased quality of service. In addition, the voice packets in conventional conferencing systems travel through internet protocol (IP) routers with no provisions for increased quality of service at the conference session level for voice quality that users will experience, even with some IP routers implementing some simple quality of service improvements by taking advantage of the knowledge in the link level.
Application integrated ad hoc types of conferences have specific technical issues that contribute to longer delays. A VoIP conference enabled application can be deployed over a geographically wide spread area. Users are provided with a “Click To Join” button to create a new conference or to join an existing conference. For example, the ad hoc conference can be created during an instant messaging chat and initiated from the instant messaging application. One of the participants in the messaging chat selects the “Click To Join” button, creating a conference at a first conference server. Eventually, a total of ten participants join the conference. One participant is located in Asia, and the other nine participants are located in the continental United States. Since the participant that first selected the “Click To Join” button is located in Asia, the host conference server is also in Asia. The other nine conference participants are forced to use the conference server located in Asia. These nine participants will then have to deal with quality of service issues associated with trans-Pacific transmission, for example signal delay.
In addition to the technical limitations associated with the significant distance between most of the conference participants and the host server, each participant may be configured to use different conference service providers. Since the conference identification created in the ad hoc conference for a VoIP application is a unique random number and not a public telephone number, the conference identification number is only known and routable within its own service provider domain. Therefore, participants not within this domain may not be able to join the conference.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,567,813 (the '813 patent) discloses a conference system that allows multiple participants to join the conference from multiple conference servers. However, a single, centralized conference server is still used to provide audio mixing for the conference. In addition, centralized conference identification management is used, requiring every participant to join the conference by visiting a single web page. Participants cannot launch or join a conference directly from an application without visiting the special conference service provider web page. The servers used for the conference are assigned when the participant visits the special conference service provider web page, allowing the centralized conference manager to control and monitor which conference servers are used for the conference. Only single conference service provider models are supported. The conference system disclosed in the '813 patent does not work across multiple conference service providers.
The need still exists for a multi-party conference system that provides for improved quality of service using a distributed network of collaborative servers. The system will eliminate the need for a single, centralized server to provide conference hosting and audio mixing. Instead, these services would be distributed among multiple collaborative servers that are disposed as close to each one of the participants as possible. The distributive server system would handle both pre-scheduled and ad hoc conferences.